MCAS Cherry Point: The East Coast Home of Marine Aviation
Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point sits on the North Carolina coast as the east coast home of Marine aviation and the heart of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing. Whether a Marine came up through Parris Island or San Diego, whether they identify with Lejeune to the south or Pendleton out west, the reality is the same when the UCMJ comes calling: geographic loyalty does not matter, and the military justice system does not care how good a Marine you have been. What matters is whether you have counsel and the willingness to fight that can actually change the outcome.
A Marine facing charges at Cherry Point is in a fight for a career, a retirement, and in serious cases, freedom. The only way to win that fight is to deny the prosecution the easy conviction it is counting on and force it to prove every element of what it has charged. There is no shortage of lawyers in eastern North Carolina. There is a shortage of lawyers who will take the hard case to trial and win it. That is the firm Marines fly in from around the world, to Okinawa, Germany, and Korea, and while we are not across the street from Cherry Point, we are close, a short flight from our Tampa office.
The Only Marine Aviator to Earn the Medal of Honor in Vietnam
Cherry Point is Marine aviation, and no Marine aviator showed what that means under fire like Major Stephen Pless. On August 19, 1967, Pless heard an emergency call that four American servicemen were stranded on a beach and being overrun, some of them already being bayoneted by an enemy force of thirty to fifty. He flew his gunship straight into it, put the aircraft down between the wounded men and the enemy as a shield, and held there while his crew dragged them aboard, beating back wave after wave of attackers who closed to within feet of the helicopter. Overloaded, the aircraft settled into the water four times before he muscled it into the air. He was the only Marine aviator to receive the Medal of Honor in Vietnam. Pless flew into fire that should have killed him because Americans were down and out of options, and we bring that same refusal to leave a fighter behind when we fly to Cherry Point.
Why Marines Find Trouble and Why the UCMJ Comes Hard
We have defended Marines around the world, and the pattern is consistent. Marines operate at high intensity, they are trained to be aggressive, and decisions that would be nothing on deployment become UCMJ cases in garrison when a command decides to make an example. The same Marine who kicked in doors overseas with honor can watch a career come apart over an allegation that should never have been credited, and the same Marine pushing toward an honorable twenty year retirement can have it snatched away at the last minute.
This is hard for Marines to accept, because they love the Corps. But you cannot coexist with a military justice system that is working to destroy you. Once the machinery starts moving in your direction, loyalty to the institution will not protect you. Only an aggressive defense will. A serious case at Cherry Point is investigated by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and for sexual assault, domestic violence, and other covered offenses, the charging decision no longer belongs to your command. It goes to an independent Special Trial Counsel in the Department of the Navy Office of Special Trial Counsel. Tim Bilecki spent years inside the military justice system as a JAG defense counsel and then a Senior Defense Counsel before going civilian, and since then he has built his career trying the contested cases most lawyers talk their clients out of. Marines retain him because he treats a court martial as something to be won, not negotiated away.
UCMJ Charges We Defend at MCAS Cherry Point
These reflect the cases we see most at MCAS Cherry Point. If your allegation is different, we still defend it, because we handle every UCMJ charge.
Sexual Assault and Sex Offenses (UCMJ Article 120 / Article 134). The Marine Corps runs its Sexual Assault Prevention and Response program at Cherry Point under the same pressures that drive these prosecutions everywhere: commands under political pressure to show accountability, allegations treated as established before the investigation is done, and administrative action pursued even when the evidence will not support a charge. The direct, aggressive culture Marines are trained into does not translate cleanly into an environment where every interaction is later scrutinized for power dynamics and a consensual encounter can be reframed after the fact. Service members have also learned that an allegation can derail an investigation into the accuser's own conduct, retaliate against a former partner, or gain leverage in a dispute, and a command under pressure to show compliance is not positioned to weigh those motivations. You need counsel prepared to investigate independently and fight for every element.
Fraud and Larceny (UCMJ Article 121). Many of the Article 121 cases we see at Cherry Point start as an administrative problem an investigator decided to call a crime: a miscalculated BAH entitlement, an unreported status change, a paperwork mistake. Intent to defraud is a required element, and the prosecution has to prove the Marine knowingly set out to cheat the government, not merely that an overpayment happened. A great many of these cases cannot survive once the defense forces that burden. We handle BAH and OHA fraud, larceny, wrongful appropriation, extortion, and conspiracy to defraud the military.
Domestic Violence and Assault (UCMJ Articles 128b and 128). Domestic violence under Article 128b is now among the heaviest parts of our caseload, charged by an independent Special Trial Counsel with the weight of a felony. It reaches a spouse, an intimate partner, or a family member, and singles out strangulation and suffocation as their own offense whether or not a mark is left. The Lautenberg Amendment then bars a Marine with a qualifying conviction from any firearm or ammunition, which can lead to separation or other serious career consequences. Plain Article 128 assault is real work here too. Marines drink and Marines fight, and that has been true since Tun Tavern. The question is never whether off duty altercations happen, it is whether they should end careers. The ones that produce Article 128 charges at Cherry Point tend to involve a civilian, a serious injury, or an improvised weapon, and command responds hard because it cannot appear to tolerate violence. In many of those cases the other party started it and the Marine was defending himself, but the Marine is the one charged once the dust settles. Self defense is a recognized defense, and we take assault, aggravated assault, manslaughter, and murder cases.
Drug Offenses (UCMJ Article 112a). North Carolina has not legalized recreational marijuana, but the national drift toward legalization breeds a dangerous assumption that what is increasingly legal off base must carry lighter consequences in uniform. It does not. A positive urinalysis is serious, but it is not the end of the fight, because the chain of custody has documented weak points, innocent exposure is a recognized defense for certain substances, and the government still has to prove the use was knowing and wrongful. These cases require counsel who understands both the science of drug testing and the elements the prosecution has to prove.
Military Specific Offenses (UCMJ Articles 77 to 134). Fraternization, unauthorized absence, disobeying a lawful order, conduct unbecoming, and the rest of the punitive articles exist outside civilian law, and enforcement of them is selective. Charge stacking, piling on offenses to inflate the apparent severity, is a standard tool designed to pressure a plea. Each charge requires proof, and forced to carry the burden on every one, the prosecution frequently cannot sustain the full list.
How the System Works and How to Fight It
When we say fight, we mean it. What decides whether you need us is the seriousness of the case, not your rank. If it is a genuinely minor lapse that does not call for a civilian trial lawyer, your free detailed defense counsel at the Defense Services Organization can handle it, and we will tell you that honestly, because we turn away the cases that do not need us rather than take a Marine's money. But when the case is serious, and the longer you have served the more you stand to lose, everything is on the line at once: your career, your retirement, your good name, and your freedom. A conviction at court martial is a federal criminal conviction. Under the Corps' current sentencing rules, a judge works within fixed confinement parameters, with mandatory minimum punishments for the gravest charges, so it can mean real confinement, a punitive discharge that brands you for life, and on a sex offense a place on a sex offender registry, and that falls on the most junior Lance Corporal as hard as on a Gunny with twenty years in. That is why service members fly Bilecki in from all over. Even if you made a mistake, you fight for the best possible outcome, because the system will not find it for you.
The work is independent investigation, hard cross examination, and forcing the government to carry the burden it accepted when it preferred charges, conceding nothing it has not actually proven. When prosecutors at Cherry Point see retained civilian counsel enter the case, the easy path to conviction they expected disappears.
Get a Real Defense Before Cherry Point Acts
If you are facing an investigation or court martial at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, reach out for a free defense strategy session. We will listen to your account, give you an honest read on the charges, and explain how we would take the fight to them. We are based in Tampa, but the whole world is our area of operations, and we will fly to Cherry Point and fight by your side.
FAQ
I'm a Marine at Cherry Point. Who investigates my case?
A serious case is investigated by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which handles felony level matters for both the Navy and the Marine Corps. For sexual assault, domestic violence, and other covered offenses, the decision to refer charges to a court martial no longer sits with your command. It goes to an independent Special Trial Counsel in the Department of the Navy Office of Special Trial Counsel, a specialized military prosecutor who decides whether the case goes forward. That change was sold as a reform, but for you it means the prosecutor making the call does this for a living and is insulated from your chain of command, which is all the more reason to have experienced counsel engaged early.
I'm a Marine aviator or aircrew at Cherry Point. What does an investigation do to my flight status and my wings, separate from the court martial?
It moves on its own track and often first. Cherry Point is the east coast home of Marine aviation and the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, and an allegation can set the Marine Corps flight performance and flight status review process, including a Field Flight Performance Board or Flight Status Selection Board as applicable, in motion to decide whether a designated aviator or NFO stays on flight status. The board can return you to full flight duties, ground you short of that, or permanently disqualify you from aviation, and a DUI or other misconduct can trigger one even if the charge never sticks. While it runs you fly nothing and lose flight pay, and enlisted aircrew can lose their designation and quals as well. The board answers to its own standard, not the court's, so the wings have to be defended deliberately rather than as an afterthought to the trial.
Cherry Point is small and isolated, and there aren't many military defense lawyers around Havelock. Will you actually come here?
Yes, we come, and distance does not lower the quality of a defense. Military defense is all we do, and we try these cases wherever the Marine Corps convenes them, so we come to Cherry Point, run the investigation on the ground here, and try the case in front of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing command. The isolation the prosecution is counting on stops being its advantage. What decides the outcome is not how remote the station is, it is whether you fight and who is standing next to you when you do.